Master of Hearts (10 page)

Was he continuing his walk purely for exercise, in order to think over her reactions, or because he had other, far more pleasant, things to think about? She remembered the way his breath had stirred her hair when they stood close together, and the strength of his arm as it clasped her shoulders. She wished she knew whether a part of his thoughts would dwell upon her as he went sauntering into the darkness, and at the same time she felt slightly bewildered because she so consciously desired him to think about her.

Only three weeks ago she had decided that he was completely unlikable. Now . . .?

How did she think and feel about him now?

As she went up the stairs she told herself that the less she thought about him after her experience tonight the better. And recalling how his informality had dropped away from him when they stepped into the radius of light from the house she repeated this piece of advice to herself with emphasis.

As a man who understood women, and had no mean opinion of his own capacity to charm, no doubt he occasionally made use of that charm to gain a point. And the point he wished to be sure of at the moment was that she would not run away back to England when she was beginning to mildly discipline his nephews.

In the morning he paid his first visit to the nurseries in the daytime since she had taken on her present position. He appeared in the big Day Nursery while she was listening to Joe's laborious attempt to spell out words,

and Jerry was leaning against her other knee. She was sitting in a low chair covered in attractive chintz, and her head was bent above the children and the huge picture-book that was spread open on her lap, and her soft gold hair fell forward and lightly caressed her cheeks. Her feathery eyelashes formed enchanting half-circles that fluttered on those same delicately flushed cheeks.

It was concentration that brought the flushed look to her face, and when she raised her eyes they were clear and blue and bright with excitement because Joe, at last, seemed to be making progress. She was just about to praise

him and give him one of the hugs she occasionally

on him—for he liked being hugged—when the slight noise in the doorway caused her to glance up, and it seemed to her that Miguel de Chaves eyes were gazing straight into hers.

An altogether inexplicable expression stole into the dark grey depths as they watched her, and for no reason at all her heart started to beat rapidly.

"Good morning," he said quietly, and she put the two small boys aside and stood up.

"Good morning, senhor!"

She wondered whether it struck him that her voice had a slightly breathless note in it.

The Conde advanced into the room, and she said hurriedly to Jerry and Joe that they must greet their uncle. They did so like two small automatons, and with a touch of Portuguese formality, while their hands reached behind them for her pink cotton skirt. As on another occasion she strove to detach their fingers, but the Conde merely smiled and said with a hint of wryness:

"They feel safe with you, and they are alarmed by my appearance! I am the uncle who is really an ogre and eats small boys!"

"Oh, I—I'm sure that isn't what they think!" But Kathleen knew there wasn't much conviction in her voice. "They are a little surprised, that is all."

"Because I don't often visit you here in the nurseries? Well, we can put that right, at least!" He held out his hand to Jerry. "Come here, Jeronimo! And you, too,

Joseph, if you can tear yourself away from Miss O'Farrell I can understand that you feel happier holding her hand, but I have come up here specially to visit you, and it is only polite to shake hands, you know!"

The two small boys shook hands, and then darted back to Kathleen.

The Conde laughed.

"There must be something wrong with my methods," he said drily.

Kathleen dared to make a suggestion.

"Perhaps if you called them Jerry and Joe—instead of Jeronimo and Joseph!—it would help," she said.

"You think so?" His eyes went to her, and she received the impression that he was not paying much attention to her suggestion but was intrigued by something about her. "Very well! Jerry and Joe it shall be in future, and we will see whether that will yield results. And now as a short break from routine I suggest that I take you all three for a drive while the air is still reasonably cool. Would you like that—Jerry and Joe?"

Jerry gaped at him.

"You mean you will take us for a drive?"

The dark grey eyes smiled lazily at him.

"If you feel that it will provide you with some enjoyment."

"In your big black car? The one that is all shiny with silver, and goes like the wind?"

The Conde nodded, and leaned against the door. "Have you a weakness for fast cars, my son? I never knew it!"

Jerry nodded, his eyes gleaming.

"Janelas never drives fast—he is too afraid!" he said scornfully, and a little unreasonably, since Janelas always received his instructions beforehand. "But you do, I know. I've seen you!"

The Conde laughed again, but this time it was a genuinely amused laugh. He glanced across at Kathleen, and at the twinkle in his eyes she smiled.

"Then if Miss O'Farrel is not nervous we will risk a little fast driving this morning," he said, and put a

hand on the boy's rough red head. "Are you nervous, Miss O'Farrel?" he enquired.

A slight swinging of the golden hair answered him, and Jerry and Joe both gurgled in delight. In fact, they whooped with delight. A little anxious lest their enthusiasm should not altogether please their uncle. Kathleen urged them towards the door of the Night Nursery, observing that if they were to be taken out they must be made presentable, but Miguel called after her a little sharply.

"You will make no alteration in your appearance, will you, Miss O'Farrel? You look delightful as you are!"

Kathleen felt herself colouring furiously, and she stammered:

"Not—not if you don't wish me to!"

"I don't," he said quietly, and almost gravely, and his lustrous eyes gazed straight into hers.

He said he would wait for them on the drive in front of the house, and when they joined him Jerry and Joe were shining like a couple of new pins, and wearing beautifully-laundered white silk shirts and little pale blue shorts. They had also been persuaded into short white socks and patent-leather shoes instead of their usual open-toed sandals. Kathleen was still wearing her pink cotton dress, and the only concession she had made to the outing was that she was a white straw hat in her hand, and had a white pouch handbag tucked underneath her arm.

The children's uncle let his gaze rest on all three of them, but it lingered longest on Kathleen.

"You will do very nicely," he said. Then, as he continued to study Kathleen, added a little disconcertingly: "Very nicely indeed!"

He put the boys into the back of the car and locked the doors, so that however much advantage they took of their splendid isolation they would not fall out, and insisted on Kathleen sitting beside him in the front. She would have much preferred to be with the children, and even suggested it was not altogether safe leaving them to their own devices; she was thinking of the pearl-grey

upholstery, and the twins' delight in getting to the bottom of simple mysteries such as chromium-plated gadgets for the storage of cigarettes and reception of ash, roof lights,
etc.
But the Conde didn't seem to care just then whether extensive depredations were wrought to the inside of his car, and he told Kathleen that the drive would not be very pleasant for her if she was going to concern herself overmuch with her charges. So she sat back feeling a little awkward and slightly perplexed, because after all her job was to look after the children and only a few weeks ago he would have administered a rebuff if she had permitted them to get out of hand.

Now, all at once, he was mellowing to an extraordinary degree, and she didn't know quite how to account for it.

But the drive was so pleasant that after a time she forgot her preoccupation with the twins, and began to enjoy it. She remembered what Peggy had said about the superb comfort of his car. It was even more luxurious than his chauffeur-driven cars, and his method of handling it proved him to be expert at the controls. She could tell that he normally liked to travel at great speed, for it was only when the speedometer registered nearly eighty miles an hour on a reasonably straight stretch of the winding coast road that he glanced at her and instantly started to slow.

"Sorry!" he said. "I know you said that you didn't object to speed, but the purpose of this outing is to show you a little of our countryside. And to give pleasure to our passengers in the back, of course!"

The passengers in the back were shrieking with delight, and hanging on to the straps that were there for the purpose of maintaining balance; but Kathleen was glad when they were travelling at a more decorous rate and she could see how beautiful was this corner of Portugal where she now earned her living. They had turned inland from the sea, and there were cork forests rising against the sky, and chestnut forests, and miles and miles of cultivated fields and vineyards. The vineyards secretly thrilled her with the thought of the slowly swelling grapes lying out

there beneath the hot sun, to be crushed into wine at the time of the wine-harvest; and she wondered how many of those terraced slopes were the property of the man beside her, who was, as she knew, an immensely rich landowner. As if he read her thoughts he informed her conversationally:

"At the time of the wine-harvest our people make merry as well as toil hard. It is far too early yet to be thinking of celebrations and the crushing of the grapes, but in the autumn you will see how everybody enjoys themselves. And you, too, will probably have some little part in the enjoyment!"

"You mean that there are festas and things?"

"There are celebrations, as I said. Much dancing and singing . . . particularly singing! You have yet to hear our Portuguese fados. Such sad, simple songs, and yet so full of charm, quite unlike any other songs you will hear in any other corner of the world."

"I have heard them in Lisbon," she said. "At one of the popular restaurants."

"Ah, but that is a very different thing to hearing them here on the lips of the truly simple people."

"You employ many people?" she heard herself asking. "You own many of these vineyards, don't you?"

He waved a careless hand to indicate the extent of his possessions.

"As far as you can see," he told her. "As far as you will see until we reach the outskirts of Amara."

"We are going into Amara?" she asked rather quickly, hoping that her curiosity hadn't sounded a little crude.

"We will provide those two small creatures in the back with some ice-cream, or a cooling drink, and then we will return by way of a little valley that I think you will find enchanting. And perhaps there we will stretch our legs, and your charges might pick you a bunch of wild flowers—although the season for wild flowers at their very best is over."

"You mean the springtime?" she said.

"Springtime in Portugal is—beautiful!" he said, and i
n
the way in which he said it convinced her that in his opinion Portugal was always beautiful.

It seemed strange — in fact, very strange — to be sitting at a small table on a raised hotel terrace mopping up ice-cream as it trickled down the sides of Jerry's and Joe's mouths in the company of the uncle they held in so much awe. Kathleen would not have believed, when they started out, that he would have permitted himself to be seen in public with these two small encumbrances and herself—nothing more than a nursery-governess whom he himself employed. And although it was true he selected the most exclusive hotel in the town for refreshment that could have been enjoyed beneath an ordinary café umbrella, he didn't look as if he was actually revolted when a lump of strawberry ice landed on Joe's bare knee, and Jerry threatened to overturn the vase of flowers in the centre of the table.

He merely told the children quietly to behave, and then looked across at Kathleen and smiled whirimirally.

"What a life you must have," he said, "disciplining—or striving to discipline!—these two! We shall have to think up a reward for you that will make it all
worthwhile
!"

But she didn't feel in need of any reward as they returned to the car, and he once more put her into the seat beside him. In this relaxed, indulgent mood of his he could hardly have been more pleasant, and she was beginning to be certain that Peggy had underrated his charm. Every time he smiled at her and she saw his white, perfect teeth flash brilliantly by contrast with his dark face, and his sea-grey eyes underwent curious softening processes that rendered them disturbingly handsome watching her as they did between his thick eyelashes, her heart behaved in a peculiar fashion. And sitting beside him and watching his hands on the wheel, strong and firm and shapely and exquisitely cared-for, was a pleasure in itself. The whiteness of his cuffs emphasised the lean brown strength of his wrists, and the

heavy gold ring that was embellished by a crest winked on his middle finger in the gay morning sunshine.